Tag Archives: Russia

Now that even Pope Francis has gotten in on the selfie game, Russia has come out with a compelling reason why young people should avoid them. Not because they’re narcissistic, or inappropriate for heads-of-states to indulge in at funerals, or because no one really wants to see your ugly mug again, but because there is a serious health risk: head lice.

That’s right. Whenever you take selfies with a group of friends (or strangers), you end up cramming your head together with others’ heads. This often ends up in hair-to-hair contact, which is the prime condition for spreading lice.

readme decided it needed a vacation and went to Russia to see what the youth feel about this new recommendation from a regional health agency. “Well, I’m worried about the ebola, so not taking selfies seems like the next step,” said one teen wearing a shower cap and face mask. readme tried to convince them that ebola wasn’t spread through lice, but they ran away, spraying hand sanitizer over their shoulder. Another youth said that “it’s kinda a bummer not to be able to take selfies with friends, but now I can take more of just me!”

Reasons given for the health guideline include the fact that lice are “constant companions of natural and social disasters,” and that “typhus is carried by lice, and in the old days, it carried away a lot of lives. In the Russian-Turkish war (1768-1774), typhus killed more people than wounds received from battle.” Also mentioned is the treatment for lice in medieval Europe: mercury, which causes you to go crazy and die. readme thought that all of these reasons seemed like good ones to avoid lice, and by extension, selfies.

This health agency also suggested that you shouldn’t eat sushi because tapeworms (readme’s new favorite reason: “because tapeworms”), and that crows should be killed because they are just “feathered wolves” that spread bird flu. In addition, the agency has placed bans on imported products from several foreign countries, usually just as the foreign country is planning to do something anti-Russia, like talk to Western Europe. Only a coincidence, of course.
readme has decided that the advice is sound, and from now on, will take no more selfies. Don’t want to catch a case of the lice, which have been such a huge health problem. You can never be too safe.

“Let me show you how to save fifteen percent or more on car insurance.”

While most CMU students were recovering from hangovers (or all-nighters) on Labor Day Monday, a dreadful piece of news came from Russia’s space agency: five geckos that were sent to orbit in July were found dead after the spacecraft landed on September 1.

According to the agency’s website, these geckos were part of an experiment that studied how weightless environment affects geckos’ reproduction. However, scientists lost communications with the satellite soon after it made orbit. They were not able to control the aircraft, or to observe the geckos. One imagines the geckos found a way to turn off camera feed after they realized that they should be charging money for this prime gecko porn.

Through subsequent investigations after the spacecraft landed, engineers discovered that there was a heating malfunction in the cabin, which made the sex experiment a lot hotter. Literally.

Despite the setback, the agency is determined to continue sending animals into space. According to a poll on its website, the number one creature that people want to send to space next is Justin Bieber, with the hope that he will never return to Earth.

Not everyone was as optimistic as Russia’s space agency, though. Some worried that this was an attempt by Putin to develop cosmically-irradiated space geckos for the sake of world domination, while others were simply concerned by the fact that the Russians chose to send an odd number of geckos into space, which can only mean they planned for some hot gecko threesomes somewhere down the line.

Although the scientists have a working theory on what killed their geckos, several biology students offered readme an alternative:
“Sex kills,” said one, and a few others nodded. “I mean, it makes total sense. It’s why I am alive here, at CMU, unlike those sexy space geckos. Don’t ask me how.”

So there’s shit going down in the Ukraine. readme spoke to Matthew Swivet, a guy on campus yesterday who was hustling home with a box full of canned tuna, bottles of water and a geiger counter stolen from one of the Physics labs. Swivet agreed to talk to readme provided it be in his makeshift bunker in the bottom of Wean. Once arrives, Swivet began to explain the crisis in detail:

“The Ukraine is a pretty ballin’ place.” He said, pulling a green gas mask over his head. “Back in the last Cold War they was like “Oh man. We gotta be our own damn nation. “ which was pretty cool of them. So the USSR went to shit and Ukraine was a thing and so was Russia and, like, Ukraine was cool with the US and shit.” explained Swivet while putting on an old vinyl record of the Beatles’ “Back in the USSR”.“‘Cept they ate up this little place called Crimea–which is this little ballsack-like-thing poking into the Black Sea” he said, pointing to the tattered world map pasted to the wall with camo-patterned duct-tape.

“So Crimea’s got all these kinda Russian people and all these kinda Ukranian people and all the kinda-Russian people were like “Yo, man, dat ain’t cool” when the Ukraine was like “Hey ‘sup you can only speak Ukrainian now. No Russian for you.” and they been protesting and shit and, like, the Ukrainian government don’t know how to deal. They being all like “hey let’s send some rich dudes in to govern” and Russia is all like “no man. Crimea be Russian.” and like, that ain’t cool either.’” Explained Swivet as he piled the canned tuna on the wire racks of his new abode.

“So then the Russians invaded Crimea, which like, wasn’t cool. Some shit about how you can’t invade a sovereign nation. But like, you know, those Russians in Crimea kinda got a point to. So like. I dunno, man.” He shrugged as he placed a gallon of distilled water on the shelf alongside what looked like a lead helmet. “But the U.S. was all like, “hey, man, that ain’t cool.” anyway and told that Putin guy they couldn’t do that shit. And Putin was like, “get out my face, man” and kept goin’. There’s like 60-kay guys over there. And Obama was like “Dude you do this shit you can’t have the G8 meeting thing later” which i dunno what that means , man, but like, we’re probably gonna have another cold war, man, at least according to Fox and I’m gonna be prepared as fuck. I mean that’s gotta be pretty damn serious. Obama wouldn’t even boycott the Olympics for the gays. I mean ice skating versus that shit, man.” Just then, a rather haggard looking janitor came in, glaring at readme and its well-prepared fellow.

“The fuck you doing down here.” demanded the put-upon woman.

“Oh, shit.” exclaimed Swivet as readme swiftly climbed out the low window above the wire racks. “ I’ll give you some of my tuna if you don’t tell Suresh. You’ll need it in when the nuclear winter starts.”

In the wake of the vaguely-successful 2014 Winter Olympics, Russian policymakers have been subjected to an unusual level of global scrutiny. In particular, media outlets latched onto the stringent anti-homosexuality laws implemented by Russian premier Vladimir Putin, bringing the issue to the forefront of the public consciousness. But what about all those other countries that put so much effort into the oppression of their LGBTQ citizens? Does the fact that they didn’t host the Olympics make them any less reprehensible? Here at readme, the homophobic countries of the world are like our children; we hate them all equally. So let’s talk about a country whose homophobia has been sadly overlooked in recent times: Uganda.

A week ago, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni proposed an anti-gay bill that he later signed into law. The bill would outlaw the “promotion” of homosexuality, make having gay sex an illegal act punishable by life in prison, and requires all citizens to “report” on those they suspect to be gay. All that’s missing is the proposal for a military-grade gaydar that monitors Ugandan cities to make sure nobody exceeds the government-mandated limit of ‘fabulous’ (insert sarcastic jazz hands here).

The bill has been met with much outrage on the international level, especially from those Western powers who have donating money to support development of Ugandan infrastructure. Denmark, the Netherlands, and Norway have already cut aid plans in protest of this new bill, the World Bank has stalled a loan to the country while they ‘review’ the bill’s results, and our own President Obama even went so far as to warn Museveni that ties between the United States and Uganda “would be damaged” as a result of that bill. Well shit. That’ll learn ‘em.

Museveni held firm in his support of the bill, announcing his intention to sign the bill into law with a homophobic tweet. Because that’s the point we’ve reached as a society, where our world leaders spread hateful rhetoric condemning huge swathes of their own citizenry through tweet. “The West can keep their ‘aid’,” he said. “We shall still develop without it.” You know, it occurs to readme that when you basically have to hold your own country’s developmental success hostage in order to get foreign powers to support your legislation, you’re doing legislation wrong.

Now, in the wake of such massive displays of homophobic dickery, other countries like America might be worried their own homophobic tendencies will be overshadowed. It’s hard to compete with this level of willful bigotry, after all. But don’t worry, America. Just because your brand of homophobia is nowhere near as heinous as in these other countries doesn’t mean readme doesn’t hate you anyways.